Two Atlanta-based organizations known for assisting underrepresented founders have joined forces to raise the stakes for women founders.
Launchpad2X, a founder-to-CEO accelerator program for women entrepreneurs, announced a partnership with Zane Venture Fund, a $10 million fund created to support founders with diverse teams. According to LaunchPad2X President Christy Brown, who joined the organization in May, the partnership is designed to provide capital for LP2X companies and bring candidates to Zane for funding.
"We simply find value in what they’re programming," Brown said. "They have a culture of creating platforms that teach founders. We see them as a pipeline for LaunchPad."
The relationship happened organically, thanks to a professional relationship between Atlanta angel investor and Zane Ventures partner Sig Mosley and LaunchPad2X founder Bernie Dixon. The partnership will support early-stage founders looking for outside capital to grow their businesses, according to a news release.
“We at Zane believe in the power of collaboration and partnership," Shila Nieves Burney, founder and managing partner at Zane Ventures, said in a statement. "It takes a community of like-minded organizations to help diverse founders build great companies, and we are thrilled to partner with LP2X to ensure the founders in our care have access to the resources they need to be successful.”
The step is part of a bigger mission to strategically grow LP2X's resources and expand the program into other cities to propel female-led companies forward, Brown said.
"Launchpad has been this legacy platform for almost 9 years that Bernie Dixon built out of the need to see female founders gain confidence and traction," she said. "Our next level --- which is why I was brought in --- is the strategic alignment outside Atlanta... to emulate the program that’s been so widely successful in Atlanta in other geographies."
In addition to the partnership with Zane, Brown said LP2X recently partnered with TiE Access to continue to provide funding to female founders.
"It's a very similar strategic relationship we have with Zane Ventures," she said.
As the beachhead market, Atlanta has been a source of change and diversity that's driven LP2X forward, Brown said. Thanks to Dixon's foundation of the organization and successful results, the program is bound to take hold in other cities, she said.
"We know putting that platform in other cities, other under-served markets, will bring that population of female founders up as well," she said. "...There’s others in this marketplace doing the same thing. Ascend Atlanta, Zane Ventures, TiE Access, Collab Capital... There’s a lot of us all trying to raise up the under-served population, through funding and education. Atlanta has a lot of opportunities other cities don’t have just yet. It could be a great footprint to take to other cities."
Though Brown said they would not disclose the cities LP2X is looking at for expansion at this time, she said they are looking at locations that are not major metropolitan areas with established startup ecosystems, such as New York and Chicago.
Brown's plan for LP2X's growth is expanding the internal operation in Atlanta with a strategic board of directors and growing their next cohort. The second goal is to establish a funding/grant mechanism that helps bridge the gap many women founders face.
"The third area is continuing on this path of learning," she said. "We continue to strive, connect and expand --- now more than ever as we focus on things like wellbeing, culture and working from home."
For those looking to help the organization, Brown said LP2X is always in need of corporate leaders who want to support female founders, members to lead workshops or help coach companies on the expertise they have and other strategic partnerships.
Brown, who has nearly 20 years of experience as a founder, VC investor, futurist and executive leader, said supporting female led companies and strategies is her passion. Prior to joining LP2X, she led the expansion of VC platform Loeb Enterprises. She said she's looking forward to doing her part in helping build up other women in the community.
"We’re definitely the modern LaunchPad2X and we’re eager to move into the next phase of what that means," she said.
